Monday, August 29, 2011

Brightwell

A friend of mine is opening a shop in Silverlake catering to fine mens products and the like. I offered up to paint his sign for him, and it ended up being quite the adventure. I ended up NOT painting and actually used vinyl for the letters instead. I also reminded myself that I'd never done a vinyl sign before, so, I didnt forsee the pitfalls:

Applying vinyl to a window proved to somewhat disastarous. The first time, I tried to apply the entire sheet on the window, and the vinyl ended up buckling and forming air pockets. Big time amateur move. Putting vinyl on a window is more like applying tinting to a window. Very delicate and loose.

I opted instead to attempt apply the vinyl in pieces (one for each letter). This went a little easier, but I ended up running out of room, and ran into the edge of the window. One a 3rd attempt I spaced the pieces correctly and got them all on the window.

With that painful and arduous process over, I then did the 'transfer' of the image onto the vinyl. That went ok, I juts had to make sure the letters didnt overlap, and each letter stayed on it's designated piece of vinyl. This way a letter wouldn't stretch onto a separate piece.

Finally the letters are on the actual vinyl, and I can juts cut with the exacto blade. This was after 3 hours, and was relieved to have this done. Though my head was a bit loopy at that point from the heat.

As the letters peeled, it started to come together, aside from a few glitches on the round parts (the G was the toughest). But nevertheless, it's a classy store and I knew it needed to be a classy sign.

If you're in the Silverlake area, amke sure you stop on by and check the shop out. And say hi to Eric!